Cooking Italian Recipes is a blog style website devoted to preserving the old family recipes of my Sicilian heritage. Cooking authentic Italian food is easy, fun and delicious! Some of these Italian dishes are new takes on old traditional family gourmet recipes. Here, we will also get into home wine making, review products and comment on wine - food pairings. Enjoy.

Pages

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Focaccia - The grandparent of the modern pizza!

Focaccia is the great grandparent of the modern day pizza! You can bake this bread today, and capture the flavors that date back to the times of old.Enjoy it next to your favorite Italian meals. The recipe here is a guideline. By all means, adapt it to your tastes. You can turn this into amazing garlic bread. Don’t like onions, omit them. There are no limits what you can do with this Italian recipe.

Directions:• Dissolve the brown sugar in the warm water, then add yeast and let stand for 15 minutes• Add the ¼ cup of olive oil.• Add the flour, corn meal, 1 ½ tsp of the salt and mix in your mixer using the dough hook for about 15 minutes, alternatively, you can kneed by hand, but choose to use the mixer.• Coat with olive oil, place in a bowl and cover. Let rise for about 45 minutes, until the size of the dough ball has doubled in size.• After it has doubled, punch down the dough and cover again. Allow it to rise again for another 45 minutes.• Coat a Jellyroll pan, Square Pizza Pan or something similar with olive oil. Press the dough into the pan using your hands. Press it out all the way to the ends of the pan, making a lip around the edges. Using your fingers or knuckles, make indentations across the whole surface.• Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for about 15-20 minutes. While it is rising, preheat your oven to 450 degrees. If you have a bread stone, preheat it at this time.• Mix the topping: in a bowl add the remaining salt oil and spices. Mix well.• Remove the plastic wrap and evenly coat the focaccia with the topping. Be gentle when doing this.• Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown.• Cover the focaccia with foil, so that it doesn’t brown too much more and bake for another 15 minutes.• Remove from oven, remove foil and slice into rectangular pieces. I use a pizza cutter to do this easily.When making this, use your imagination. You can put some thin sliced tomatoes, minced garlic, or whatever you desire.I hope you have enjoyed making this Italian focaccia! It is an excellent addition to your bread baking repertoire.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Sicilian Prince's Cooking Italian Recipes

Follow Me on FaceBook

Search This Blog

Welcome

Hello All,

Welcome to Cooking-Italian-Recipes.com! This blog is dedicated to the Italian cooking that I grew up on, Italian wine making and family traditions.

As a child, growing up a Sicilian, in New York, the aromas of this fine cooking permeating my home were an everyday occurrence. Getting to eat this fine Italian Cooking, from Grandma, I quickly became spoiled.

Here, I will share my modern day experiences, re-creating in the present from the memories of the past.

I think what makes this website different from others like it, is that I am just a regular guy. I am not a chef, nor do I do I cook for a living. You will not find me on Food Network! Not that I think there is anything wrong with Food Network... The point being is I am not some famous chef on TV. Just a regular every day Sicilian guy with no formal chef training.

So, if I can cook these Italian recipes, so can you! No special skills or training is required. All of the Italian recipes I present here are simple.

When I cook, most of the time, I believe less is more. I don't like to over complicate dishes. Flavors, in my opinion, should not compete with one another, but should support and enhance each other. Gourmet doesn't have to be complicated. It should be defined with that it tastes good.

Please feel free to give my Italian Recipes a try... Modify them as you wish.

And, if you enjoy them, please pass them down to your children and grandchildren! Build family traditions and memories around these Italian dishes.

As my grandmother used to say, Italian food is about love. To the memory of my Grandmother, I dedicate this site.